My day started out well on Monday, however just before leaving for work, I looked out in my fenced-in backyard and saw two dogs that weren’t mine sniffing around. My neighbor had come over unannounced to clear some limbs along the fence separating our yards. Although I was completely baffled as to how he thought this was ok ,I had no time to argue because I was due at work. I was frustrated with this throughout the day and made a simple mistake by getting an incorrect name to go with a photo. A mistake I likely would not have made if I was focused completely on my assignment.

Have you ever met a Girl Scout named Walter, Wayne or Scott? Well I did. During a recent weekend at the former Strathmore Estates I met several burly bearded construction workers who were members of the Girl Scouts of Historic Georgia. Volunteers from as far away as Tennessee joined local workers, SCAD faculty and students to harvest materials from the former Pennsylvania Avenue apartments. All of the workers paid their dues to the Girl Scouts in order to volunteer for the day of careful demolition.

A recent article by Neil Burgess for the Editorial Photographer UK website, which declared “the death of photojournalism” brought me back to a paper I wrote while a student at SCAD in 2000. In the paper, I cited an article by Carol Squires, which appeared in the Sept/Oct 1996 issue of American Photo. The article entitled “The Truth of Our Time” was focused on the continuing struggle of photojournalists to find outlets for their projects. It clearly pointed out that there is certainly not a shortage of good photojournalism, only a shortage of editorial outlets willing to publish the work.

Squires (1996) ironically states “in an age when anyone with a 35mm point-and-shoot camera or camcorder can make images good enough for newspapers or the evening news, photojournalists are having to ask themselves how to satisfy their needs to both do distinctive work and make a living.”

Wow, this sounds strikingly similar to Burgess’s article, written just a week ago!

In 1996, most photographers were still shooting film. Today, add in better quality cameras on cell phones and the affordability of high-end digital gear, and it is easier for people with little training to take photos. Couple that with a recession and shrinking ad revenue, and it has become more difficult for many news organizations to continue to put money into photojournalism. Burgess (2010) points out that most magazines and newspapers are using photographers more as illustrators to produce images to accompany a writer’s story but they no longer fund photojournalism. It is likely that the days of photographers spending long periods of time to produce photo essays resulting in a 25 image spread is virtually a thing of the past.

Most photographers today do not act as reporters. Though we gather information, write our own captions and come up with story ideas, we do not write the text for the main story. Does that mean we are not considered photojournalists? For me, I have always first and foremost considered myself a photographer, and I love what I do. No matter how easy it is for someone off the street to capture photos or a reporter to shoot their own pictures, I am sure my passion for photography will always come through in my pictures.

As a graduate student, in 2000 I ended my paper saying:

“Though sometimes I wonder: With all of these concerns facing my future, why in the world would I want to be a photojournalist? I think of the possibilities and the joy it brings me when I witness events firsthand and am able to capture a little piece of the moment on film. I know that there is no other profession for me. I hope that this decline in publishing is just a trend and that photo journalistic still-photography will once again recapture some of the glory it once held.”

A recent email about an upcoming photo assignment left me very curious about what was ahead: "We will be in a swamp of course, and we are going to encounter mud, and some minor wading in water will be required in about two spots. The water should not go above the thighs and that is why I call it minor wading, and even that depends on how much rain the area receives between now and then. The areas we will have to wade are not very wide, I call them the narrow channels that flow through the swamp."

Last weekend, I had a chance to stop by the Sentient Bean and enjoy the sounds of three different bands. The show opened with General Oglethorpe and the Panhandlers, a local group with Devin Smith and Anna Chandler sharing the vocals along with a mix of instruments, including the accordion. They were followed by Blair Crimmins and the Hookers, a band from Atlanta who won Atlanta’s 99X "Your Shot to Rock" contest. Lead singer, Blair Crimmins played keyboard, guitar, and banjo and was accompanied by a trombone, saxophone, clarinet, stand-up bass, and drums. It was a gr

There we were designer Lyndsey Nielsen and I, digging under a bush near the road in front of the Savannah Morning News office, when editorial columnist Tom Barton pulled up wondering what we were doing. Well, we explained that we were attempting to gather dirt so we could create mud to use for a photo illustration. With the recent dry weather, it was quite difficult with the plastic shovel we were using. So, being helpful, he got out of his car, whipped out a golf club and took a few swings at the ground to loosen up the dirt.

I never fail to be amazed at the people I meet while on assignment. While taking pictures of the opening ceremony for the Moving Wall Vietnam Memorial during its stop in Pooler, I had the opportunity to meet Marine Corps veteran, Allen Harvey. Harvey and I did not exactly get off to a good start. He came over to me to express his displeasure with me taking a photo of him embracing a fellow vet during an emotional point in the program. I explained to him that I had taken a respectful picture showing his comrades back and his face as he consoled the gentleman. Mr.

About 300 people of all ages staggered, crawled and groaned their way along River Street Saturday night during the 3rd Annual Savannah Zombie Walk. Unsuspecting visitors were treated to a spectacle rarely seen in Savannah.

It's almost Thanksgiving, so that means another High School football season is winding down. Over the past several weeks, I have had the opportunity to shoot both photos and video of some of the best games in the area. With only a couple of teams still alive in the playoffs, I went back through my images and video and put together a few highlights from the season. A special thanks goes to the guys from Big Engine, a rocking band from Jacksonville, Florida, for allowing me to use Juggernaut(Built for Speed) from the album Shifting Into Overdrive for the video.

Georgia Southern played in their first post season game since 2005 and celebrated a 41-16 victory over South Carolina State at Paulson Stadium. The win added to the excitement of the Eagles' return to the playoffs. The first college football game I covered for the newspaper was in 2000 when I had the opportunity to travel to Delaware for a semifinal playoff game, which the Eagles won en-route to their sixth National Title. Over the next five years, I was on the sideline taking pictures for nearly all of the Eagles' home playoff games.